System and Method for Linearizing Musical Scores

ABSTRACT

A standard musical score represented in digital format is analyzed for its constituent parts in order to identify notational directives for traversing through the musical score. A linearized version of the musical score is generated that is in substantially the same visual format but allows the reader to traverse through the musical score exclusively in a forward direction and without need for jumps in a reverse direction or forward jumps beyond the subsequent consecutive page. In certain embodiments, forward jumps may be minimally limited to a page within the musical score while in other embodiments a forward jump may be minimally limited to a line or a measure. In yet other embodiments, reverse jumps may be entirely eliminated while in still other embodiments, reverse jumps within pages may remain unchanged.

BACKGROUND AND PRIOR ART

Musical scores have been used for centuries for representing musicalpieces. Traditionally printed on paper, such scores are sometimesreferred to as sheet music, with each page of a musical score capturingthe notes, rhythm, and sequence of how the musical piece is to beperformed. One particularly challenging aspect of performing orpracticing with sheet music is the need to physically turn the pages inorder to continue with musical scores that extend beyond one page. Theact of turning pages interrupts the playing of the instrument and cancause the practice session or performance to suffer. Oftentimes,professionals employ assistants whose job it is to physically turn themusic sheets so that the musician can focus on playing. This can becritical for a musician whose instrument is the piano or the violin,where both hands are needed to play the instrument.

Rather than employing assistants, mechanical means to turn pages can beused and U.S. Pat. No. 7,238,872 discloses a mechanical system forautomatically turning pages of musical scores. While such a machine canusefully address the simple act of turning pages, musical scores may notbe linear entities and may require the musician to move within the scorein nonlinear ways.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,323 describes an electronic music stand thatdisplays a digital score that can be scrolled via a foot pedal, soundrecognition, or a timing mechanism. However, the scrolling is limited topaging forward or backwards, which results in a potential need forrepeated scrolling if the musical piece requires the musician to jumpforward or backwards by several pages. Without the tactile feedback ofphysical pages, such repetitive scrolling may result in overshooting thepage and a need to reverse the scrolling, thereby disrupting aperformance by even a greater amount than the intended goal of savingthe musician time and distractions.

Specifically, musical pieces often repeat sections but the physicalrepetition of such sections in a score can be expensive tocreate—especially when scores are transcribed by hand—and result inliterally heavy burdens for the musicians to carry as well as bewasteful of paper. Consequently, notational shorthand has been createdto instruct the musician when a section needs to be repeated, saving onthe need to redundantly reproduce the exact same sections multipletimes. However, this creates a situation where, unlike a book that thereader simply turns to the next page to continue reading, a musician mayneed to go back a page when progressing in a musical piece or even jumpforward several pages within a score in order to skip over parts thatare not included in the repetition. Such nonlinear turning of pagesmakes the mechanical act of page turning even more disruptive. With theintroduction of digital storage media, the possibility of nonlineartraversal without physical overhead became possible.

U.S. Pat. No. 8,431,809 describes an electronic music display thatallows the musician to define the points at which a musical scorecontinues on another page that may be earlier in the score. The systemrenders visual cues on the digital page to indicate where page turnswill occur and additional visual cues indicate where the page will go towhen it is turned. However, the system requires manual entry of therepetitions and requires a timer that calculates when a page turn willoccur. To have to manually define all the nonlinear jumps in a scorebefore using such a system could be a tedious task and the visualindicators may be distracting. Furthermore, having a timer can bedifficult for musicians who are still becoming familiar with the scoreand need to practice without adhering to a preset timing for progressingthrough the musical piece.

U.S. Patent 2011/0203442 discloses an electronic display of sheet musicthat is capable of jumping from one portion of a score to another. Thesystem assumes the existence of sub-module that would require manualintervention to alter the flow of the music in order to conform to theintent of the musical score. Such manual intervention is costly in termsof time and labor.

In general, systems for electronic display of musical scores are basedupon the fundamental unit of the original physical musical page of thesheet music. For example, U.S. Patent 2001/0037719 discloses a systemfor displaying music sheet where a musician can manually program theflow of the music but the system is based upon the fundamental unit of apage within the score. As well, in U.S. Patent 2008/0092723, ahands-free system for traversing musical scores is based upon thefundamental unit of a page within the score.

While basing the display of musical scores on a fundamental unit of asingle page within the score is sensible, it can also be suboptimal forthe musician. Specifically, when the correct page has been found, themusician has to know where to look in order since the point where thepiece continues may not be at the top of the page but somewhere in themiddle of the page. This need to search for the correct position tofocus on adds an additional cognitive task for the musician and, takentogether, the traversal of a musical score can be far more challengingthan the traversal of a standard book which is generally in a linearfashion. With respect to musical scores, there is a need for anunderstanding of the structure of the musical score in order to traversethe score as intended.

In U.S. Patent 2006/0048632, the musical score is broken down intoatomic units, each unit comprising of at least one musical note, whichare then displayed in a browser. While such a system may be suitableassociating audio components to a score and for providing a musicianwith minute control over the elements of a musical piece, it does notaddress the issues relating to the traversal of a piece of music thatmay potentially be nonlinear due to repetitions within the piece.

In U.S. Pat. No. 8,442,325, a method for recognizing musical scoreimages is disclosed whereby the lines of a musical staff is detected andseparated from the notes. The disclosed method is used for generating asound corresponding to the musical notes, and does not use theunderstood components of the musical score to sequence the musicalcomponents in order to aid a musician in traversing the score.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,687 describes a musical score display that canaccommodate the basic elements of a musical score, including repeatinstructions such as Da Capo, Dal Segno, Al Fine, and other constructs.However, the system is based upon musical data that need to be createdspecifically for the pieces of music being displayed. Thus, thedescribed system does not have the ability to take advantage of the hugecorpus of existing musical scores, such as classical pieces byBeethoven, unless the laborious work of converting standard musicnotation to the needed musical data format is undertaken manually.

U.S. Pat. No. 8,530,735 describes a system that replaces displayedportions of a musical piece with subsequent portions of the same musicalpiece so that the display is synchronized with a performer. The systemis well suited for performers, such as singers in a karaoke settingwhere the performer needs to follow some existing musical guide.However, the system is not based upon standard musical scores and so hasno concept of musical structure represented in the sheet music formatpreferred by classical musicians. It is therefore unable to takeadvantage of existing musical scores but will need to have some systemof converting existing scores to an internal format.

It can be seen that there is a need for a system and method to displaytraditional paper-based musical scores using an electronic device. Itcan also be seen that there is a need for a system to allow page turningin a manner that conforms to the progression of the musical piece whileminimizing the possibility of turning to the wrong page. Furthermore, itcan be seen that there is a need for a system that presents theestablished visual format of musical scores but is freed from the limitsof being constrained to music sheet pages which require cognitive effortby the musician to find the continuation point when a jump within themusical score is made. Finally, it can be seen that it would beadvantageous for such a system and method to take advantage of the largecorpus of existing musical score by automating the ingestion of thescores so that the musicians will not need to manually enter data foreach score they desire to use.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is the intent of this disclosure to describe a systemthat displays, through an electronic device, musical scores in a mannerthat is visually comparable and similar to paper-based sheet music and,in a manner that avoids the potentially distracting act of jumping overmultiple pages or backwards through the musical score in a nonlinearfashion by linearizing the musical score so that all progress is forwardand without jumps over multiple pages. The disclosed invention providestraversal between parts of the musical score based on units smaller thanan entire page so that direct access to parts of a musical score may bepossible without a need to retrieve content from an entire pageregardless of whether all of the material within the page is desired.The disclosed invention also automates the process of convertingstandard musical scores into a linearized form so as to take advantageof the large corpus of musical scores already in existence withoutrelying upon costly manual conversion.

OBJECT AND ADVANTAGES

Accordingly, it is therefore an objective of the present invention toprovide a digital display of a standard musical score that issubstantially a visual equivalent of the paper-based versiontraditionally used by musicians for playing music.

It is also an objective of the present invention to recognize musicalconstructs in standard musical scores and to encode such constructs intoan internal digital representation that is context-sensitive to how amusical score is traversed by a musician in order to replace thenonlinear jumps with simpler linear progress through musical scores.

It is another objective of the present invention to take advantage ofthe wealth of existing musical scores by providing an automated processof extracting standard musical score notation into an internal digitalrepresentation.

These and other objectives of the present invention will become clear tothose skilled in the arts upon review of the following specificationsand description.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference tothe drawing, wherein like designations denote like elements, and:

FIG. 1A depicts a section of a musical score rendered on a tabletcomputing device.

FIG. 1B depicts a section of the same musical score depicted in FIG. 1Aafter having been linearized by the present invention and rendered on atablet computing device.

FIG. 2 illustrates some components of a musical staff that are relevantto the description of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a functional flow chart of the steps of execution used by asystem implementing the system of the present invention.

FIG. 4 depicts an example from an embodiment whereby musical staves aredetected through the row-wise counting of black pixels in a rasterizedpage of a musical score.

FIG. 5 is a functional flow chart of the steps of execution used by asystem implementing the linearization routine of the present invention.

FIGS. 6A-6H illustrate the process of the present invention linearizingtraditional musical scores by musical units corresponding to measures,lines, and pages.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring to FIG. 1A, in some embodiments of the present invention, thesystem for linearizing traditional musical scores is resident oncomputing tablet device 100, tablet device 100 includes a display 102.Tablet devices are commonly available commercially and include suchcommon devices as the Apple iPad and a variety of Android operatingsystem based tablet computers. FIG. 1A depicts a page musical score 104rendered upon display screen 102 in a manner indistinguishable fromcommon music notation used in standard sheet music and familiar tomusicians. Page of musical score 104 includes a title section 106,followed by several grand staves 108, 110, 112, 114, 116, and 118 ofmusical notation, each grand staff comprising of two sets of musicalstaves, each musical staff comprised of five substantially long,horizontal lines. In this exemplary illustration, each grand staff iscomprised of two musical staves joined by a vertical bar at the left endof the staves but it is understood that the composition of musicalstaves within grand staves may be structured differently depending onthe intended instruments of the musical score. For example, a violingrand staff is comprised of exactly one musical staff while a pianogrand staff, a shown in FIG. 1A, is comprised of two musical staves.Musical scores for other types of instruments or groups of instrumentswould have other configurations. Each grand staff is comprised ofseveral measures with each measure delimited by vertical barlines.

Referring now to FIG. 1B as well as FIG. 1A and where like numeralsidentify corresponding parts throughout the views, a depiction of a pageof linearized musical score 105 is musically equivalent to page ofmusical score 104 from FIG. 1A but is visually different due to thelinearization of the present invention. It can be seen, in this example,that title 106 is also followed by grand staves 108 and 110 but,departing from page of musical score 104 in FIG. 1A, page of linearizedmusical score 105 repeats grand staves 108 and 110 immediately afterrendering a first set of grand staves 108 and 110. In this way, thereader's eyes will not need to return to an earlier section of a musicalscore after it has been linearized but can continue moving forward inthe score. After the repeated set of grand staves 108 and 110, page oflinearized musical score 105 continues with grand staves 112 and 114 soas to offer the equivalent musical piece as page of musical score 104although the amount of musical notation needed is greater in thelinearized musical score due to the explicit representation of repeatedsections and so more digital pages will be needed in the linearizedmusical score.

In general, the lines that are linearized may not need to be on the samepage and can span over separate pages. It is noted that, in standardmusic notation, such exact copies are generally omitted and the musicianis directed to repeat particular sections of music based upon thenotation given. However, in the present invention, such repeatedsections are duplicated so that musicians will be able to progressthrough the entire musical piece without having to return to a previoussection of a musical score. In general, the system and method of thepresent invention will replace all references to earlier parts of amusical score and all jumps to subsequent non-consecutive parts of amusical score with simple, short forward movement within a linearizedmusical score.

Referring now to FIG. 2, an example of a part of a musical score isshown depicting, for instructional purposes, a musical staff 200 whichis part of a larger musical score that generally includes many suchmusical staves over a number of pages. By way of musical notationbackground, a musical staff is an arrangement of five horizontal linesand four spaces that separate the lines, where each line or space of themusical staff represents a different musical pitch. The horizontaldimension of the musical staff generally specifies a relative timerelationship for musical notes or symbols positioned on the musicalstaff and the vertical dimension of the musical staff specifies a pitchrelationship for the musical notes. A musical staff is divided intosections generally referred to as bars or measures, each measurerepresenting a particular time span of music and separated from themeasure immediately preceding it or following it on the same line by abarline.

Still referring to FIG. 2, musical staff 200 is divided into measures bya number of separating bars, some of which demarcate the boundarybetween measures while others additionally provide instructions fortraversal through the musical score. For example, measure 210 a andmeasure 210 b are separated by vertical barline 212. Measure 210 b and210 c are separated by opening repeat sign 214. Vertical barlines 212separate measures 210 c, 210 d, and 210 e. Closing repeat sign 216separates measures 210 e and 210 f. Measure 210 f is separated frommeasure 210 g by another vertical barline 212.

Musical staff 200 generally progresses linearly stepwise from onemeasure to a consecutive measure immediately thereafter. For example,starting at measure 210 a, the music score is read one measure at a timethrough measures 210 b, 210 c, 210 d and 210 e. However, non-linearjumps can occur as when closing repeat sign 216 is encountered at theend of measure 210 e, directing the progression of music to return tothe closest preceding opening repeat sign 214 which is at the beginningof measure 210 c. Without additional instructions, closing repeat sign216 is only effective once and when measure 210 e is visited a secondtime, the second encounter of closing repeat sign 216 is no longerinterpreted as a return to the closest preceding opening repeat sign 214but, instead, proceeds directly from measure 210 e to measure 210 f.Other instructions for non-linear jumps between measures may bepresented in different forms, such as instruction 218, represented asthe phrase D.C. al Coda which instructs the musician to return to thebeginning of the musical score until reaching another instructionindicating a jump to a point in the musical score represented by a codasymbol. Additional non-linear instructions within musical scores exist,including volta brackets and other musical notational devices known tomusicians with standard skills for reading musical scores.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a flowchart diagram 300 of the preferredembodiment of the present invention is shown. Flowchart diagram 300begins at a step 302 for obtaining a digitized version of a traditionalmusical score as a rasterized image. In some embodiments, the digitizedversion of a traditional musical score can be obtained via the internetaccess to an existing digitized version of a traditional musical score.For example, the Mutopia Project (www.mutopiaproject.org) has madethousands of musical scores that are in the public domain, such asBeethoven sonatas or Mozart concertos, freely download on a CreativeCommons License and in a standard format such as PDF (Portable DocumentFormat) or PNG (Portable Network Graphic). The retrieved image isassumed to either be convertible to a rasterized digital format (such asPDF) or is already in a rasterized digital format (such as PNG), wherethe musical score is stored as an image that is organized as a matrix ofpixel values.

In still other embodiments, digitized scores may be directly accessedthrough digital data transfer from a digital storage device, such as anexternal solid state memory stick, an internal on-board RAM (RandomAccess Memory) unit, a connected digital musical instrument, or throughsome other hardware device or software application. These and other waysof transferring data between devices from a source to a computing devicesuch as the one in the present invention, are well known to thoseskilled in the arts.

In general, digitized scores may be stored in a variety of formatsincluding a vectorized format, such as PDF, wherein the representedimage is not accessible directly as pixel values through givencoordinates, but as instructions for creating the represented contentwith a vector-based rendering system. Other digitized scores may bestored as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files or someproprietary musical notation format. Because obtaining rasterizedversions of files stored in these and other digital formats can beaccomplished through existing software and are well known to thoseskilled in the arts, the disclosure for the present invention assumes,without loss of generality, that the digitized musical score isconsidered to be one or more rasterized images where each pixel of animage is accessible by its position within the image through its row andcolumn values within the image.

In some embodiments, a rasterized version of a traditional musical scorecan be obtained through the use of a digital camera to capture an imageof a musical score, the capturing process typically creating acompressed data file in PNG, JPG (Joint Photographic Expert), or someother data file format which support conversion into rasterized form.The image data is generally stored in memory storage associated with thecamera and can be accessed through any number of wired or wirelessconnections known to those skilled in the arts. Additional substeps mayinclude routines to remove distortion from poor camera angle, theautomatic adjustments of brightness and contrast to enhance thelegibility of the score, image rotation to account for alignment thatdoes not match with the main vertical and horizontal axes of the image,and other image processing procedures to improve the overall quality ofthe image to be analyzed that are well known to those skilled in thearts.

The rasterized images are assumed, without loss of generality, to becomprised exclusively of completely black or completely white pixels.Although typical images may include other pixel values, such as fromgray pixels resulting from anti-aliasing routines to smooth images, fromoff-white color areas inherited from the original paper-based score fromwhich the digitized musical score is based, from shadows cast on thepaper during the digitization process, or from a number of other causesinnate to the original score or introduced through the digitization ofthe musical score, image processing techniques including edge detection,contrast adjustment, color separation, artifact removal, and otherheuristics well known to those skilled in the arts exist to address suchissues so that any rasterized musical score can be converted to an imageconsisting of only black and white pixels.

Once a black and white rasterized representation of a musical score hasbeen obtained, a step 304 is executed to detect musical staves. In oneembodiment, the rasterized representation is analyzed, row by row, togenerate a row-wise count of black pixels. The resulting vector of blackpixel counts is traversed and counts that exceed a minimal of thresholdvalue are considered possible staff line candidates. A possible value touse as the minimal threshold value is 75% of the maximum count,indicating that the row has a long line. Referring now to FIG. 4, anillustrative example of a musical score and the resulting histogramgenerated from adopting the approach as described is provided. It can beseen that that the analysis of musical staff 400 will result in a dataset substantially similar to histogram 402 where certain rows can beconsidered long lines, which would be a necessary component of a staffset, and other rows have relatively few black pixels in comparison.

If five such long lines are detected so that each of the aforementionedfive long lines are a certain separation distance apart from itsneighboring line and the topmost long line, should it have another longline above it, is separated from the aforementioned long line above itby a distance substantially greater than the aforementioned separationdistance separating lines within a staff and the bottommost long line ofthe aforementioned five long lines, should it have another long linebelow it, is separated from the aforementioned long line below it by adistance substantially greater than the aforementioned separationdistance, then the group of five lines is considered a staff line set.The substantial distance referenced can be, as an example, a distance atleast double the aforementioned separation distance. Rasterized imagesof musical scores are guaranteed to have at least one such staff lineset and, depending on the intended instruments, musical scores may groupseveral staff line sets together into a grand staff, which can bedetected by following a vertical line that connects all the staff linesets into one unit. For the remainder of this disclosure, the termsgrand staff, musical staff, and staff will be considered to equivalentlyrefer to a grand staff and will be used interchangeably without loss ofgenerality.

In other embodiments, the staff detection routine can be completed withother approaches, such as a connected-component labeling algorithm todetect contiguous shapes that can be compared against staff-likestructures in order to determine whether they are staff lines. Referringnow again to FIG. 3, numerous algorithms and heuristics for extractingstructures within images for identification against known shapes existare well known to those skilled in the arts and can be usefully appliedin step 304.

Referring still to FIG. 3, for each staff found, step 306 is executed todetect barlines within the staff that separate the staff lines intomusical measures, each of the musical measures occupying a pre-definedduration of time through musical notes and rests. A portion of therasterized image corresponding to the found staff, from step 304, isscanned for vertical lines that span the defining height of the staff.In some embodiments, the scanning process can involve counting thenumber of black pixels for each column of the staff. It is understoodthat the defining height of the staff includes all the constituentstaves in some cases and, in other cases, the defining height consistsof only a partial subset of constituent staves so that lyrics,distinction between instruments, or some other reason for defining shortbarlines can be realized. In other embodiments, line tracing algorithmsor other heuristics known to those skilled in the arts can be used tofind barlines.

Once barlines are detected for each staff, a step 308 classifiesdetected barlines into one of a number of different types of barlinesthat separate staff line sets into measures: a standard barline thatsimply defines the boundary between separate musical measures, a barlinepair that separate musical measures and additionally indicates somesignificant change such as a new musical key or time signature, anopening repeat sign, or a closing repeat sign. After classification step308 is completed, in the preferred embodiment, the musical measuresdefined by barlines are appended into an enumerated list at a step 310so that each measure in the musical score can be uniquely identified byan associated enumerated identifier.

In the preferred embodiment, the enumerated measures are associated withtheir surrounding barlines and are classified at a step 312 as astandard measure, as a repeat-start opening repeat measure, or as arepeat-end closing repeat measure and stored in memory of the computingdevice. A standard measure has barlines or barline pairs at both ends ofthe measure. A measure that starts a repeated section has an openingrepeat sign at the start of the measure and a measure that ends arepeated section has a closing repeat sign at the end of the measure.

In addition to repeat signs, other jump instructions may be included ina musical score and a step 314 searches for additional jump instructionsby scanning the rasterized score for text and symbols just above thestaff lines that directs a jump to a non-consecutive measure. In someembodiments, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) techniques may beemployed to detect jump instructions. Jump instructions are associatedwith the measures that the detected instructions are directly above andthe directive given by the detected jump instruction is coupled with theassociated measure in the storage memory so that a query of a measurewith a jump instruction would yield the destination of the jump.

A step 316 traverses through the list of enumerated measures and buildsa linearized traversal list of measure references based upon the orderof visitation of the aforementioned enumerated measures. Referring nowto FIG. 5 as well as FIG. 3, an expansion of this step is show in aflowchart 500 starting at a step 502. The measures detected andclassified from steps 306 through 312, inclusive, can be stored as anarray or some other form of data structure in the working memory withinor somehow connected to the computing system of the present invention.In some embodiments, the data structure can be an array, as shown herefor descriptive purposes, but in other embodiments, the data may varyand can be some sort of list, stack, heap, or any number of other datastructures that allows retrieval by an index directly or indirectly, andwhich are well known to those skilled in the arts. For the sake ofsimplicity and without loss of generality, the data structure is assumedto be an array and is hereafter referred to as m, with each element of mreferred to by its position, p, within the array m by the notation m[p].

In a step 504, each measure is associated with an iteration countvariable initialized to zero so that each measure can keep track of thenumber of visits made. A traversal list, here referred to as list, willhold the final linearized musical score, is initialized to an empty listat a step 506. An initialization of variables occur in a step 508, wherea shared variable for accessing elements of the array, m, and herereferred to as index, is initialized to 1, referring to the firstmeasure in the data structure. Also, in the same initialization step508, a variable keeping track of the index for the measure that wouldbegin a repeated section, here referred to as last_start, is initializedto 1, indicating that any repeat instructions without a point from whichthe repeated section is to begin will start from the first measure, orthe beginning of the musical score.

In a step 510, a check is made to see if the index variable is less thanor equal to the total number of measures in the array m. If not, thenthe entire musical score has been processed, and the linearizationprocess is terminated at a step 512. On the other hand, if the indexvariable is less than or equal to the length of the array, m, thenexecution continues at a step 514, where the classification of the barline defining the beginning of measure m is checked to determine if theaforementioned bar has been classified as a left repeat bar, whichdefines the beginning of a repeated section. If the bar line is, in facta left repeat bar defining the beginning of a repeated section, then theconditional at step 514 branches to a step 516 which updates thelast_start variable to hold the value of the index variable indicatingthat the next repeat will start at the current measure being considered.Execution then continues and merges with the execution flow from thenegative branch of the conditional at step 514 corresponding to the casethat the bar line at the beginning of the measure not been a left repeatbar, which bypasses the update to the variable last_start.

Execution then proceeds to a step 518, which appends the current measureto the list variable, which represents the linearized music score beingconstructed and heretofore will be referred to as the traversal list. Inthe exemplary flowchart presented for this embodiment, the measure isadded to a list data structure. In other embodiments, other approachesmay be taken to construct the traversal list such as having an arrayholding indices to the measures, or some other data structure that isable to retain an ordered list of items. Many implementationpossibilities exist to provide an equivalent solution to keep track ofsuch a list and are well known to those skilled in the arts.

After the current measure is appended to the traversal list at step 518,a step 520 increments the iteration count in the aforementioned currentmeasure to keep count of the number of times the measure has beenvisited. A conditional check is now made at a step 522 to see if the barline defining the end of the current measure is a right repeat bar,indicating that the measure is a repeat measure. If the conditionalcheck at step 522 indicates that the current measure, m[index], has aright repeat bar indicating that the music could potentially return backto where the measure at the last_start variable, execution proceeds to astep 524 where a check is made to see if the current measure is under avolta bracket. Such a check can be accomplished in a number of ways. Forexample, the horizontal center of the measure, within the rasterizedimage of the current page of the musical score, can be calculated and avertical line can be extended from the top staff line upwards until ablack pixel is encountered at a certain distance from the top of theuppermost staff within the current grand staff of the measure. Thecertain distance is generally within a fraction of the height of a staffwithin the grand staff unless musical notes extend beyond the top of thestaff so as to expand the region within which the grand staff occupies.Heuristics for calculating the bounding box of a grand staff based uponnotes within the grand staff are well known to those skilled in thearts. If a black pixel is detected and can be traced along thehorizontal direction so as to extend to both ends of the measure, it isa candidate for a volta bracket. Further, the detected volta bracketcandidate should have a hanging end in the left end—or, beginning of thevolta bracket—whereby the substantially horizontal line turns ninetydegrees downward to form a corner with a vertical segment although itshould be noted that a volta bracket may extend over several measuresand possibly over several lines. Many approaches to identifyingstructures such as volta brackets exist, such as using pattern matchingalgorithms, using image processing techniques, and using otherheuristics well known to those skilled in the arts.

If the current measure, m[index], is not under a volta bracket, then aconditional check is made at a step 526 to see if the iteration count ofthe current measure is 1, meaning that it is the first time the currentmeasure is being visited, in which case execution branches to a step 528to assign, to the index variable, the value of the variable last_start,which refers to the measure where the repeated section begins. At thispoint, execution returns to step 518 where the first measure of therepeated section is appended to the traversal list.

If, the iteration count at step 526 was not 1, then it will necessarilybe 2 at this point, indicating that the measure with the right repeatbar is being visited for the second time. In such a case, where therepeated section has already been repeated and is not under a voltabracket, the progress through the musical score continues to the nextconsecutive measure and the current measure index is incremented by oneat a step 530 before execution is sent back to step 518 to append thenext measure to the traversal list.

If the current measure that has a right repeat bar is under a voltabracket, then the conditional branch at step 524 continues to a step532, which retrieves the iteration indices under the volta bracket, aset of iteration indices always being associated with volta brackets incommon musical notation in order to indicate the iterations to be playedunder the volta bracket. A number of approaches exist to recognize thenumbers indicated by the indices under the volta bracket such as OCR(Optical Character Recognition), machine learning, or other algorithmswell known to those skilled in the arts. Once the volta indices areretrieved and recognized as decimal numbers at step 532, a step 534checks to see if the iteration count of the current measure matches oneof the retrieved iteration numbers. If so, the index is assigned thevalue of the last_start variable sending the progress of music back foranother repetition. Execution, in this case, continues at step 518 wherethe first measure of the repeated section is appended to the traversallist.

If the iteration count of the current measure, which has a right repeatbar and is under a volta bracket, is not in the list of volta indices,then execution proceeds to a conditional at a step 536 where alook-ahead heuristic is adopted to examine the next consecutive measure,namely m[index+1], to check for a volta bracket start. The executionflow in this case merges with the negative branch from the conditionalat step 522, where it was determined that the right bar of the measureunder consideration is not a repeat bar and a look-ahead is necessary tosee if the measure immediately following the current measure is underthe beginning of a volta bracket.

If the measure immediately following the current measure is found to beunder the start of a new volta bracket, then the conditional at step 536branches to a step 538, which retrieves the iteration indices under thedetected volta bracket. Once the volta indices are retrieved andrecognized as decimal numbers at step 538, a step 540 checks to see ifthe iteration count of the current measure matches one of the retrievediteration numbers. If so, then the detected volta bracket is meant tofollow the current measure directly and a step 542 is executed where theindex is incremented and the process returned to step 510 to check onthe index bounds. If, on the other hand, the iteration count of thecurrent measure is not within the indices found for the volta bracket,then a search is made at a step 544 to retrieve the next volta bracket.If no additional volta brackets exist, then the index is updated toreflect a jump to the measure immediately following the end of thecurrent volta bracket at a step 548, before control is returned to step510 to continue in the loop processing the measures of the musicalscore. If, however, step 544 indicates that there is another voltabracket after the current one, then the volta variable is updated to thenext consecutive volta at a step 546 and control then returns to step538 in order to check if the current measure should jump to the measurescovered by the subsequent volta bracket.

If the measure immediately following the current one does not have avolta bracket starting on it, then the conditional at step 536 branchesto the negative branch and proceeds to a step 550 where a check is madeto see if there are any instructions in the musical score to jump toanother point in the musical score away to a non-consecutive measurefrom the end of the current measure. Such jump instructions may come ina variety of notational forms including graphical symbols such as a codaor textual form. A number of approaches exist to detect suchinstructions and, by their positioning, associate them with a particularmeasure. OCR and neural networks are two of the many ways to addressthis issue which are well known to those skilled in the arts. If a jumpinstruction is found, then the instruction at a step 552 is executedwhereby the measure index is assigned the index of the measure that isthe destination of the jump. Otherwise, if no jump instruction isdetected, then a step 554 is executed where the index is incremented topoint to the next consecutive measure from the current measure. Control,in either case, returns to step 510 to check for the index boundariesand potentially begin another iteration of the loop.

In summary, and referring to FIGS. 3 and 5, the traversal routinereferred to at step 316 and detailed in flowchart 500 begins at thefirst enumerated measure, with each consecutively enumerated measureappended to the traversal list as the next measure to visit unlessoverridden by repeat signs or additional jump instructions thatredirects the traversal that would otherwise proceed with itsprogression through the measures in a stepwise manner from one measureto its consecutive successor, to instead make a jump to anon-consecutive measure, which would then be appended into the traversallist with the traversal continuing from the appended measure and theconsecutive measure immediately subsequent to it within the enumeratedmeasures list subject to overriding instructions. The traversalterminates when the last measure is reached and no jump instruction isoperatively relevant. The traversal list is, at this point, a linearizedlist of how the musical score is to be traversed by measure.

Referring now to FIGS. 6A and 6B, where like numerals identifycorresponding parts throughout the views, a simplified musical score isshown to illustrate the process of the present invention. FIG. 6A showsa musical score 600 that spans over two pages, a page 602 a and a page602 b. Page 602 a displays two lines, a line 604 a and a line 604 b.Page 602 b displays two lines, a line 604 c and a line 604 d. In someembodiments of the present invention, each measure is assigned a uniqueidentifier indicating its position in the musical score. In otherembodiments, measures may be referenced in a unique manner without anidentifier but, for the sake of clarity in this illustrative example,unique identifiers are used without loss of generality.

Referring now to FIG. 6B, the indices of the measures are shown over themusical score For illustrative convenience and, when read in sequence,defines the ordered list [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] for the measures inmusical score 600. Recalling the definitions of musical notationgenerally used and illustrated in FIGS. 1A, 1B, and 2, it can be seenthat, after applying the exemplary linearization process as describedhereabove, the resulting linearized traversal list would be [1, 2, 3, 4,5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8].

In some embodiments, the list of measures, hereabove referred to as thearray, m, but is understood to be capable of being equivalentlyrepresented by any number of other implementations, may additionallyinclude, for each measure, references to the bounding boxes of the areathe corresponding measure occupies in the original rasterized musicalscore. A bounding box, in this context, refers to a rectangular areawithin which all the musical notes and associated musical notation for aparticular measure are confined. Musical notation may include textualinstructions, phrase lines, or any number of other notational markingson a musical score intended to help a musician in playing the piece ofthe musical score. A bounding box can be defined in a number of waysincluding being bounded on the left by a vertical bar, inclusive, on theright by another vertical bar, exclusive, on the top by the highestmusical note or highest associated musical notation, whichever ishigher, and on the bottom by the lowest musical note or lowestassociated musical notation, whichever is lower.

Referring now to FIG. 6C, by using the bounding boxes for the detectedmeasures, a display of the linearized musical score can be rendered byusing the bounding box information to crop out a subimage from therasterized musical score. By placing the subimages in sequence, witheach measure defined by its bounding box rendered in linear sequence inthe order dictated by the linearized traversal list, an alternative butequivalent musical score can be created that will allow a reader tofollow the progress of the music without having to move in a reversedirection. Referring still to FIG. 6C, it can be seen that between lines604 b and 604 c is now inserted a new line, 604 e, which is followed bylines 604 c and 604 d. Line 604 e is comprised of measure 606 e, or themeasure numbered 5, followed by measure 606 d, or the measure numbered4. The rendering of a sequence of rectangular objects of substantiallythe same height but with potentially different widths, in a linearformat and within a limited display over a number of lines, is widelyused in such applications as web browsers, and word processors, and iswell known to those skilled in the arts.

In some embodiments, as each grand staff is detected, a running count ismaintained and each grand staff is assigned a number corresponding tothe order in which it was detected. In this way, each distinct grandstaff line is associated with a unique identifier. In these embodiments,each measure retains an identifier for the grand staff within which themeasure resides in the original musical score. After the construction ofthe measure-based traversal list is completed, as previously disclosed,some embodiments may construct a parallel list of the same length as theaforementioned traversal list but, for each entry, storing only theindex to the grand staff for the corresponding measure in the list.Alternatively, rather than constructing a parallel list, theaforementioned traversal list may be augmented with additionalinformation to yield the same results. Additional different butequivalent approaches are well known to those skilled in the arts and,for the sake of clarity, a parallel list will be used in the descriptionherebelow. Measures found on the same grand staff would, in theaforementioned parallel list, hold values with the same grand staffindex. A compression of the aforementioned parallel list can then bemade so that like indices occupying consecutive entries in theaforementioned parallel list are consolidated into one entry. Referringnow to FIG. 6B for the measure indices and continuing with the samemusical score example, the linearized traversal list, previouslyobserved to be [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] would yield a parallellist of [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4]. After a compression is made onthe aforementioned parallel list, the resulting list would be reduced to[1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4]. In this way, the aforementioned parallel list wouldrepresent the sequence of grand staves—or lines of the musical score—torender without repeating consecutive lines.

A rendering of the linearized musical score, using the aforementionedparallel list can, in this way, be made by line rather than by measureso that a reader would be shown a line repeated in its entirety if theline has at least one measure that is repeated. In some embodiments, theaforementioned parallel list can be rendered to yield the result shownin FIG. 6D. It can be seen, in FIG. 6D, that page 602 a is followed by anew page 602 e rather than page 602 b. New page 602 e is comprised ofline 604 c followed by a repeat of line 604 b. New page 602 e isfollowed by another new page 602 f, which is substantially the same asoriginal page 602 b from FIG. 6B. Note that, in this illustrativeexample generating a linearized parallel list of grand staff lines, thelines are displayed in their entirety in order to show the repeatedmeasures and, because the lines are rendered in their entirety, theywould also show the measures not within the repeated sections.

In some embodiments, data can be associated with each linearized line sothat measures that are part of the repeated lines but are not meant tobe part of the repeated sections can be displayed in a different mannerusing visual rendering techniques, as shown in FIG. 6E, where thenon-repeated measures in repeated lines are diminished in visibility.Such data indicating a need for some visual techniques to distinguishparticular parts of a line can be in the form of associated variable forthe non-repeated measures redundantly displayed as part of a partiallyrepeated line so that the measures not to be repeated can be overlaidwith a semi-transparent layer to partially obscure the measure that isnot meant to be repeated. Referring to both FIGS. 6D and 6E, it can beseen that measures 606 f and 606 c on page 602 e in FIG. 6D have beenvisually altered to become measures 606 i and 606 j, respectively, onpage 602 g in FIG. 6E. The data indicating a need for some visualtechniques to distinguish particular parts of a line could also bestored as coordinates of regions that are to be visually distinguishedand, in general, numerous ways exist to indicate distinguished regionsin data structures and are well known to those skilled in the arts.

In some embodiments, as each page is processed, a running count ismaintained and each page is assigned a number corresponding to the orderin which it was detected. In this way, each distinct page is associatedwith a unique identifier. In these embodiments, each measure retains anidentifier for the page within which the measure resides in the originalmusical score. After the construction of the measure-based traversallist is completed, as previously disclosed, some embodiments mayconstruct a parallel page list of the same length as the aforementionedtraversal list but, for each entry, storing only the index to the pagefor the corresponding measure in the list. Alternatively, rather thanconstructing a parallel page list, the aforementioned traversal list maybe augmented with additional information to yield the same results.Additional different but equivalent approaches are well known to thoseskilled in the arts and, for the sake of clarity, a parallel list willbe used in the description herebelow. Measures found on the same pagewould occupy entries, in the aforementioned parallel page list, holdingvalues for the same page index. A compression of the aforementionedparallel page list can then be made so that like indices occupyingconsecutive entries in the aforementioned parallel page list areconsolidated into one entry. Referring now to FIG. 6B for the measureindices and continuing with the same musical score example, thelinearized traversal list, previously observed to be [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4,5, 6, 7, 8] would yield a parallel page list of [1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2,2, 2]. After a compression is made on the aforementioned parallel pagelist, the resulting list would be reduced to [1, 2, 1, 2]. In this way,the aforementioned parallel page list would represent the sequence ofpages to render without repeating consecutive pages.

A rendering of the linearized page list can, in this way, be made bypage rather than by measure so that a reader would be shown a pagerepeated in its entirety if it has at least one measure that is repeatedbut would not see the page repeated consecutively in the rendering ofthe linearized page list. In some embodiments, the linearized page listcan be rendered to yield the result shown in FIG. 6F. It can be seen, inFIG. 6F, that the entire score is essentially duplicated so that page602 a and page 602 b are followed by another set of the same pages,namely, page 602 a and page 602 b. Note that, in this illustrativeexample generating a linearized parallel page list, the pages aredisplayed in their entirety in order to show the repeated measures and,because the pages are rendered in their entirety, they would also showthe measures not within the repeated sections.

In some embodiments, data can be associated with each linearized page sothat measures that are part of the repeated pages but are not meant tobe part of the repeated sections can be displayed in a different manner,as shown in FIG. 6G, where the non-repeated measures in repeated linesare diminished in visibility. Such data indicating a need for somevisual techniques to distinguish particular parts of a line can be inthe form of associated variable for the non-repeated measuresredundantly displayed as part of a partially repeated page so that themeasures not to be repeated can be overlaid with a semi-transparentlayer to partially obscure the measure that is not meant to be repeated.Referring to both FIGS. 6F and 6G, it can be seen that measures 606 f,606 g, and 606 h on page 602 b in FIG. 6F have been visually altered tobecome measures 606 i, 606 k, and 606 l, respectively, on page 602 h inFIG. 6G. Still referring to both FIGS. 6F and 6G, it can also be seenthat measures 606 a, 606 b, and 606 c on the duplicated and second copyof page 602 a in FIG. 6F have been visually altered to become measures606 m, 606 n, and 606 j, respectively, on page 602 i in FIG. 6G. Thedata indicating a need for some visual techniques to distinguishparticular parts of a page could also be stored as coordinates ofregions that are to be visually distinguished and, in general, numerousways exist to indicate distinguished regions in data structures and arewell known to those skilled in the arts.

In alternative embodiments, rather than creating a traversal list basedupon a musical measure before converting it to a traversal list based ongrand staff lines or pages, a compression of musical measures intoaggregate units is completed before linearization. For example, in someembodiments, each line of a traditional score is transformed into amusical unit so that linearization is applied to musical units of linesrather than musical units of measures. Referring now to FIG. 6H as wellas 6B, in some embodiments, each measure includes, in addition to itsunique identifier indicating its position in the ordered list ofmeasures, a line number indicating the line to which the measurebelongs. Such additional information associated with each measure allowsthe algorithm of FIG. 5 to be based upon a basic musical unit of a linerather than a measure. Specifically, each contiguous group of measuressharing the same line number is treated as a single musical unit. Whenjumps between measures are encountered, they are treated as jumpsbetween lines to which the measures belong with jumps between measureson the same line being ignored. In this way, a linearized traversal listof lines can be generated so that a musical score can be constructed byits constituent lines. A similar approach can be taken for making pagesthe creating basic units for linearization of a musical score bymaintaining a page number reference with each measure and ignoring jumpsbetween measures within the same page while treating jumps betweenmeasures from different pages as jumps between pages.

While variable embodiments of the present invention have been describedin detail, it is understood that the invention is not limited to theexemplary embodiments and illustrative examples, and that numerousalternative approaches to the implementation of the details for achievethe equivalent results, modifications of the embodiments to achievesimilar results, and adaptations of the embodiments to achievesubstantially the same results, can be made by those skilled in thearts. However, it is to be expressly understood that any and all suchalternative approaches, modifications, and adaptations are within thescope of the present invention, as set forth in the following claims,which are to be accorded the broadest interpretations so as to encompassall equivalent functions and structures for achieving the same results.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for linearizing a traditional musicalscore, said traditional musical score including a plurality of measures,a plurality of lines, and a plurality of pages, said system comprising:an input means, said input means accepting said traditional musicalscore in rasterized format, said musical score in rasterized formatrepresenting said traditional musical score as digital data; a staffmeans, said staff means detecting a plurality of musical staff lines onsaid musical score in rasterized format; a parse means, said parse meansparsing through said plurality of musical staff lines to create anordered plurality of musical units, said ordered plurality of musicalunits corresponding to sections of music represented within saidtraditional musical score in the same ordering as presented in saidtraditional musical score; a jump detection means, said jump detectionmeans creating a plurality of recognized jump instructions encoded insaid musical score in rasterized format directing progression from atakeoff musical unit from said ordered plurality of musical units to anon-consecutive landing musical unit from said ordered plurality ofmusical units; a linear sequencing means, said linear sequencing meanscreating a linearized list of items, each item from said linearized listof items associated with exactly one musical unit from said orderedplurality of musical units, said linearized list of items i. beginningwith an initial item associated with an initial musical unit from saidordered plurality of musical units, said initial musical unitcorresponding to the beginning of said traditional musical score, ii.following said initial item with a plurality of subsequent items, eachsubsequent item from said plurality of subsequent items associated witha subsequent musical unit while also each said subsequent itemimmediately subsequent to a preceding item, said preceding itemassociated with a preceding musical unit, said subsequent musical unitimmediately subsequent to said preceding musical unit in accordance tostandard musical notation rules, said standard musical notation rulesordering said subsequent musical unit to be either consecutivelysubsequent to said preceding musical unit or said subsequent musicalunit to be a landing musical unit with said preceding musical unit as atakeoff musical unit for a jump instruction from said plurality ofrecognized jump instructions; and iii. terminating with a last itemassociated with a last musical unit in said ordered plurality of musicalunits, said last musical unit corresponding to the end of saidtraditional musical score.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein said inputmeans retrieves, from a storage memory connected to said input meansthrough wired or wireless transmission via a direct or networkedconnection, an existing digitized version of a said traditional musicalscore, said existing digitized version convertible into a rasterizedformat.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein said input means is a cameracapable of capturing an image of said traditional musical score andconverting the captured image into digital data convertible into arasterized format.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein each musical unitcorresponds to a measure from said plurality of measures in saidtraditional musical score and each item corresponds to a measure fromsaid plurality of measures in said traditional musical score.
 5. Thesystem of claim 4, further including a line conversion means, said lineconversion means converting said linearized list of items into alinearized list of line items, each line item representing a line fromsaid plurality of lines from said traditional musical score, said lineincluding corresponding measure of an item from said linearized list ofitems, and consecutive line items representing a same line arecompressed into a singular line item representing said same line.
 6. Thesystem of claim 5, further including a flagging means, said flaggingmeans demarcating a plurality of portions of said line items to beincluded for visual rendering as part of said line items but not to beinterpreted musically as part of said traditional musical score.
 7. Thesystem of claim 4, further including page conversion means, said pageconversion means converting said linearized list of items into alinearized list of page items, each page item representing a page fromsaid plurality of pages from said traditional musical score, said pageincluding corresponding measure of an item from said linearized list ofitems, and consecutive page items representing a same page arecompressed into a singular page item representing said same page.
 8. Thesystem of claim 7, further including a flagging means, said flaggingmeans demarcating a plurality of portions of said page items, saidplurality of portions understood to be included but not to beinterpreted musically as part of said traditional musical score.
 9. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein each musical unit corresponds to a line fromsaid plurality of lines in said traditional musical score, so that alljumps into a measure within a line from a second measure from a secondline, said second line distinct and separate from said line beinginterpreted as a jump to said line from said second line; all jumps froma measure within said line to a second measure in a second line, saidsecond line distinct and separate from said line being interpreted as ajump from said line to said second line; and each jump from a measurewithin said line to a second measure within said line is discarded. 10.The system of claim 1, wherein each musical unit corresponds to a pagefrom said plurality of pages in said traditional musical score, so thatall jumps into a measure within a page from a second measure from asecond page, said second page distinct and separate from said page beinginterpreted as a jump to said page from said second page; all jumps froma measure within said page to a second measure in a second page, saidsecond page distinct and separate from said page being interpreted as ajump from said page to said second page; and each jump from a measurewithin said page to a second measure within said page is discarded. 11.A method for linearizing a traditional musical score, said traditionalmusical score including a plurality of measures, a plurality of lines,and a plurality of pages, said method: accepting said traditionalmusical score in rasterized format, said musical score in rasterizedformat representing said traditional musical score as digital data;detecting a plurality of musical staff lines on said musical score inrasterized format; parsing through said plurality of musical staff linesto create an ordered plurality of musical units, said ordered pluralityof musical units corresponding to sections of music represented withinsaid traditional musical score in the same ordering as presented in saidtraditional musical score; creating a plurality of recognized jumpinstructions encoded in said musical score in rasterized formatdirecting progression from a takeoff musical unit from said orderedplurality of musical units to a non-consecutive landing musical unitfrom said ordered plurality of musical units; creating a linearized listof items, each item from said linearized list of items associated withexactly one musical unit from said ordered plurality of musical units,said linearized list of items i. beginning with an initial itemassociated with an initial musical unit from said ordered plurality ofmusical units, said initial musical unit corresponding to the beginningof said traditional musical score, ii. following said initial item witha plurality of subsequent items, each subsequent item from saidplurality of subsequent items associated with a subsequent musical unitwhile also each said subsequent item immediately subsequent to apreceding item, said preceding item associated with a preceding musicalunit, said subsequent musical unit immediately subsequent to saidpreceding musical unit in accordance to standard musical notation rules,said standard musical notation rules ordering said musical unit to beeither consecutively subsequent to said preceding musical unit or saidmusical unit to be a landing musical unit with said preceding musicalunit as a takeoff musical unit for a jump instruction from saidplurality of recognized jump instructions; and iii. terminating with alast item associated with a last musical unit in said ordered pluralityof musical units, said last musical unit corresponding to the end ofsaid traditional musical score.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein anexisting digitized version of a said traditional musical score isaccepted from a storage memory through wired or wireless transmissionvia a direct or networked connection, said existing digitized versionconvertible into a rasterized format.
 13. The system of claim 11,wherein an image of said traditional musical score is captured by acamera as digital data and convertible into a rasterized format.
 14. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein each musical unit corresponds to a measurefrom said plurality of measures in said traditional musical score andeach item corresponds to a measure from said plurality of measures insaid traditional musical score.
 15. The system of claim 14, furtherconverting said linearized list of items into a linearized list of lineitems, each line item representing a line from said plurality of linesfrom said traditional musical score, said line including correspondingmeasure of an item from said linearized list of items, and consecutiveline items representing a same line are compressed into a singular lineitem representing said same line.
 16. The system of claim 15, furtherdemarcating a plurality of portions of said line items to be includedfor visual rendering as part of said line items but not to beinterpreted musically as part of said traditional musical score.
 17. Thesystem of claim 14, further converting said linearized list of itemsinto a linearized list of page items, each page item representing a pagefrom said plurality of pages from said traditional musical score, saidpage including corresponding measure of an item from said linearizedlist of items, and consecutive page items representing a same page arecompressed into a singular page item representing said same page. 18.The system of claim 17, further demarcating a plurality of portions ofsaid page items, said plurality of portions understood to be includedbut not to be interpreted musically as part of said traditional musicalscore.
 19. The system of claim 11, wherein each musical unit correspondsto a line from said plurality of lines in said traditional musicalscore, so that all jumps into a measure within a line from a secondmeasure from a second line, said second line distinct and separate fromsaid line being interpreted as a jump to said line from said secondline; all jumps from a measure within said line to a second measure in asecond line, said second line distinct and separate from said line beinginterpreted as a jump from said line to said second line; and each jumpfrom a measure within said line to a second measure within said line isdiscarded.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein each musical unitcorresponds to a page from said plurality of pages in said traditionalmusical score, so that all jumps into a measure within a page from asecond measure from a second page, said second page distinct andseparate from said page being interpreted as a jump to said page fromsaid second page; all jumps from a measure within said page to a secondmeasure in a second page, said second page distinct and separate fromsaid page being interpreted as a jump from said page to said secondpage; and each jump from a measure within said page to a second measurewithin said page is discarded.